


Let's Change the Future

by CaptainJZH



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Takes place in between Lion 4 and Doug Out, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-10-28 00:37:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10820076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainJZH/pseuds/CaptainJZH
Summary: When Steven is sent 5,750 years into the past, he accidentally causes Ruby and Sapphire to never meet, and therefore prevents his entire existence! Now, with the help of Rose Quartz, he has to get Ruby's confidence back, restore the timeline, and get himself back to the 21st century, all before his time runs out.





	1. Temporal Displacement (Prologue)

“What were Ruby and Sapphire’s lives like before they met?” Steven asked Garnet, his eyes wide. He was in one of his more questioning moods today.

Garnet leaned back on the couch and thought for a moment.

“Very boring,” she finally said.

“Aw, come on! There’s gotta be more to it than that.”

“Alright… Sapphire spent most of her time on Homeworld in the Thinking Spires, analyzing the future, discussing it with the other Sapphires…being invited to the endless gala events Blue Diamond kept throwing.”

“Was that the boring part?”

“...Yes.”

“And how about Ruby? Her life must have been exciting.”

“I wouldn’t say that…”

“What do you mean?”

“Ruby could never truly fit in with other Rubies. The ones on Earth weren’t very nice.”

“Aw, that’s terrible…”

“If I recall correctly though, Ruby had only been stationed on Earth for a couple days before she was assigned to guard Sapphire on her visit.”

Garnet began to chuckle a little.

“What?” Steven asked.

“Now that’s a good story…”

“Tell me!”

Before Garnet could answer the boy, Pearl and Peridot beamed in on the warp pad.

“I told you she’d agree,” Pearl said, smugly.

“She only agreed because I convinced her!” Peridot retorted back.

“Who convinced who to agree to what?” Steven asked, climbing off the couch.

“Well Steven,” Pearl began, “Do you remember that whole undersea temple with the hourglasses?”

“Oh yeah the time thingies!”

“The official designation was Temporal Displacement Prototypes,” Peridot interjected.

“Uh-uh,” Pearl said, “Well apparently there was one more working model developed by Homeworld that we did not retrieve.”

“I thought that other me smashed it.”

“You smashed it?!” Peridot asked, flailing her arms in disbelief.

“Well not ME me, it was another me who was fighting with a bunch of other me’s who were-”

“Do you know how much time and Gempower Homeworld put into the Temporal Displacement Project?!”

“If they put so much effort into it then why’d they leave it behind during the evacuation?” Pearl muttered.

“Well DUH,” Peridot argued, “The working prototypes were only finished as the evac orders were being given! The scientists in charge opted to leave, assuming incorrectly that they would be allowed back. Not very smart, I’ll admit…”

“Anyway,” Pearl said, attempting to get back on topic, “If you’ll recall the Temple is usually filled with water, and only empties every 100 years-”

“A byproduct of the malfunctioning security system,” Peridot interrupted.

“-But,” Pearl continued, “Lapis has agreed to help us drain it and retrieve the second prototype safely!”

“Yeah!” Steven exclaimed.

“I must warn you,” Peridot said, “This technology is VERY sensitive. The slightest miscalculation in its use could send the user millions of years into the future, if not the past!”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine…” Pearl started to say, before being interrupted by Peridot.

“What makes you the expert?! What we’re going to be dealing with is a precision instrument with the ability to bend spacetime in a ridiculously specific way, practically breaking all the known laws of the universe!”

“C’mon Peri,” Amethyst said, strolling in out of nowhere, “What’s the worst that could happen?”

\---

“Ready Lapis?” Pearl asked as Lapis stood on the warp pad near the barn.

“Yeah, I guess,” Lapis replied, cracking her knuckles, “Haven’t been to that place in a while… It’ll probably take me a minute or so to clear it all out, so you can warp in then.”

And with that, Lapis was off.

“So,” Steven asked, looking up at Garnet with his trademark puppy-dog eyes, “You were about to tell me a little story about Ruby and the Rubies?”

“Hmm… Alright,” Garnet began, sitting down by a tree, “It was about 5,750 years ago. Ruby and her platoon were on a routine practice mission, when suddenly a Rebel light-cannon attack hit the cliff they were on, causing it to crumble. Luckily, Ruby was able to grab onto her fellow Rubies and throw them to safety. And for her heroic actions, she was given a very prestigious assignment…”

“Guarding Sapphire!”

“That’s right.”

“She should be done by now,” Pearl said, checking the time, “Let’s go.”

As they all climbed onto the warp pad, Amethyst asked a question. “Hey Peri, how do you know about this thing in the first place? Like, this doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with Kindergartens.”

“That’s a very good question!” Peridot complimented as they warped away.

“I briefly had access to the reports when I was temporarily assigned to a revival of the project. However, due to the scarcity of the actual research and the disappearance of the original scientists during the evacuation, the project was discontinued and I took up Kindergardening!”

They arrived at the Sea Temple, now (mostly) devoid of water. Lapis was holding back the water from pouring in through the open windows.

“Nice work Lapis!” Steven said.

“Thanks,” Lapis said, “But hurry, I can’t keep this stuff back forever.”

As they walked down the hall, Steven pulled out his phone.

“I gotta record this for my TubeTube channel,” he proclaimed, turning to the camera, “Hey guys! It’s Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems!”

“Hi!” Peridot waved.

“Oh hello!” Pearl said, blushing. 

“Yo,” Garnet said, pointing at the camera.

“Uh, guys?” Amethyst said as she looked around the corner, “Which one is the working one?”

They looked around the corner and saw almost a hundred hourglasses, all of different heights and shapes.

“It would be shaped like the last one, wouldn’t it?” Steven asked.

“If my memory serves as correct, then yes,” Peridot said.

“Then look for a small round thing with a time thing inside.”

Suddenly, the temple shook with a jolt.

“What on Earth?!” Pearl exclaimed.

“Sea monsters,” Garnet said, summoning her gauntlets.

“Guys?!” Lapis called out, “I could use some HELP over here!”

“Steven, stay and help Peridot. Amethyst, you’re with us,” Garnet said before running off.

Steven, his phone still recording, ran over to Peridot, who was frantically searching the room for the Time Thingy.

“Ugh, I can’t find it! Whoever organized this place was nuts! I’d sure like to go back 5,750 years and give them a piece of my mind.”

“Wait, what?” Steven asked.

“That’s how old this place is. I can’t believe what passed for organization back then… A device that contains enough energy to power an entire kindergarten should have much safer storage!”

“Found it!” Steven said, holding it in his hand.

“Alright, give it here!”

Steven was about to hand Peridot the Time Thingy, when the Sea Temple was jolted again, causing it to fly out of his hands and roll down the hall.

The monsters were coming in through the windows so quickly Lapis couldn’t even get a chance to restrain them.

The three Crystal Gems were busy fighting off the monsters that had already made it inside.

“Guys!” Steven shouted as he put away his phone, “The Time Thingy!”

“Wha?” Pearl asked before she and Amethyst got pile-drived by a monster in their moment of distraction.

As they laid on the ground, the Time Thingy rolled in front of them. Amethyst grabbed it.

“Got it!”

The Temple shook again as another monster smashed into the windows, causing the device to slip out of Amethyst’s fingers.

“Be careful with that!” Peridot hollered, her little feet going as fast as they could to the battle site.

Pearl stabbed a monster in the gut and quickly picked up the Time Thingy.

“I got it!” Pearl said, “Here, Peridot!”

Just before Pearl threw it, the device began to light up. It was activating.

Peridot jumped up the catch the Time Thingy, but another jolt to the Temple caused her to slip and miss...resulting in it heading towards Steven instead.

The device hit Steven in the face, and with a bright white flash, he was gone.


	2. Gotta Be a Dream

Steven woke up on the beach, lying face up at the stars.

It was a familiar beach, like the one that gave his hometown its name, but it felt different somehow.

“Am I...back in Beach City?” he asked out loud.

Steven got up, noticing that the Time Thingy was sitting at his feet.

“What are you doing- Oh no…”

Steven suddenly felt a sharp sense of worry hit him in the stomach.

He forced himself to turn around, and saw what confirmed his suspicions.

Beach City was nowhere to be found.

Steven ran down the beach, to the now-lighthouseless cliff. 

“Please be there, please be there…”

As he rounded the corner, any hope he had disappeared as he found that the Temple, his home, was completely gone.

The cliffside looked like it had never been touched.

“No!” Steven cried out.

Steven ran up the wall of rock and pressed his body up against it.

“Noooooo… Please tell me this is a dream… It’s just gotta be.”

Steven pinched himself, but nothing happened.

“No… This can’t be happening…”

He took out his phone and tried to call someone, but saw that there was no signal.

“No signal… Of course!”

Steven then remembered the Time Thingy and ran back to get it.

When he reached the spot where he had woken up, he picked up the small hourglass and shook it.

“Okay, take me back to the present,” Steven commanded.

“The present!” he pleaded, “The 21st century! Two-thousand-and-fifteen! June! Eleventh!”

Steven collapsed on the ground, trying desperately to get the Time Thingy to work.

“Around noon-ish… Maybe later?”

Steven let out a big sigh.

Before he could do anything further, he heard a loud “whoosh” sound overhead. Steven looked up and saw a red Gem Ship fly over him. It looked like a Roaming Eye, but somewhat more archaic and low-tech.

“Gems…”

Without thinking, Steven ran off after the ship, which had landed just outside of what would later be known as Beach City.

When Steven reached the landing site, the ship’s door was sealed shut. Footprints led away from the ship into the woods.

Steven followed the footprints to a small cliff overlooking the ocean. There, he saw five Rubies. 

To be honest, they all looked the same, except for their gem placements. He couldn’t get a good look at where the others’ gems were located, but he noticed one in particular had a familiar gem placement, on her palm.

“Ruby…” Steven whispered to himself.

“Now,” one of the Rubies said, “What do we do if we’re lost?”

“Call for help?” another one asked.

“But what if you can’t call for help?”

“You use the stars to guide you to the nearest Gem Outpost,” the Ruby who would later form half of Garnet answered.

“Correct!” the Ruby who seemed to be in charge said.

“Oh, you’re so smart,” a Ruby said sarcastically. This one sounded oddly familiar as well.

“Oh shut up...” Garnet Ruby muttered.

“What did you just say?!” Sarcastic Ruby shouted.

“Now, now,” In-Charge Ruby said, “9ES, that was very out of line. Just because you got that question correct doesn’t belittle the fact that 4ND here has proven herself much more competent than you’ll ever be.”

Garnet Ruby looked sadly at the ground as the other Rubies continued with the lesson.

Steven looked at the shore opposite to the cliffside and saw two pink cannons aim at the Rubies’ position. They fired.

Instinctively, Steven lept forward and pushed Garnet Ruby out of the way of the blast...which didn’t hit the Rubies at all and instead hit the cliffside, causing it to crumble underneath them.

By the time Garnet Ruby regained awareness of what was going on, the ground had already collapsed underneath her platoon and In-Charge Ruby (who Steven could see had a yellow visor on, like Doc) was holding onto the edge. Ruby pushed Steven off into the bushes.

“9ES!” the dangling Ruby called out, “Get off your sorry butt and help u-!”

She was cut off by more of the cliff collapsing, plummeting the four Rubies into the ocean below.

Garnet Ruby awkwardly looked over the edge and winced.

“Nine-Eee-Eeeeeeeeeeees!” In-Charge Ruby screamed from the muddy shoreline.

Steven quietly walked away, not realizing what he had just done.

He reached the Era 1 Roaming Eye and banged on the door. 

If he could somehow stow away, he thought, he might make it to some sort of populated area and get help.

The door wouldn’t budge. Steven then remembered that there was a hatch on top the Roaming Eye he had encountered in the present, and decided to check this one.

Steven looked noticed a tree hanging over the Roaming Eye, and began to climb it. He reached the end of the branch, fell onto the top of the Roaming Eye, and...nothing. No hatch as far has he could tell.

He turned around and looked up at the sky. He just sat there for what felt like hours. He wished he could talk to someone about this.

Suddenly, he was interrupted by the sound of Rubies.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Garnet Ruby protested.

“I don’t care 9ES,” In-Charge Ruby said, “That was the last straw. When we get back I am removing you from the Sapphire guarding detail.”

“You can’t do that! You need three guards for a job that important, not two!”

“Which is why 4ND here will be taking up the position, instead.”

Ruby-4ND smiled smugly, and Steven finally got to see what she looked like.

And that’s when it hit him: It was Eyeball.


	3. You're My Mom

Steven didn’t have much time to think about the most recent reveal in his time travelling escapade, because before he knew it the Roaming Eye had taken off and was hurtling through the atmosphere at high-speeds.

Steven, being braced to the top of the ship, hung on for dear life and screamed at the top of his lungs. Thankfully, nobody could hear him.

When the ship finally slowed down, Steven got a look at where they were approaching. It was a small canyon surrounded by fields, with Gems and large virus-shaped mechanisms marching all over the place. It was the Prime Kindergarten.

The Roaming Eye touched down just outside of the Kindergarten, and a Peridot (who was significantly taller than the Peridot that Steven knew) went up to it.

“Excuse me,” Steven heard the Peridot say, “This is a restricted zone. You need-”

“Level 4 Clearance, I know” the In-Charge Ruby said, making the Diamond salute and reciting “Ruby-2F9I, Cut-4XL.”

“Alright,” the Peridot said, “You’re cleared, now state the nature of this visit.”

“One of my platoon members needs a new assignment. I sent the necessary transfer orders to the Agate in this sector.”

“Yes, yes you did...Ruby-3C8Y, Cut-9ES?”

“That’s me…” Garnet Ruby said, sadly stepping out of the ship.

“Report to the Control Room at once for reassignment debriefing.”

She turned to In-Charge Ruby.

“Anything else?”

“Just a few tune-ups.”

“I’m sure the other Peridots can handle that.”

The Peridot whistled, and a team of more Peridots rushed to the ship as she began barking orders.

Steven took this as an opportunity to float himself off of the ship and hide behind the nearby rocks. He took a deep breath.

“Okay, okay…” Steven quietly told himself, “You’re thousands of years in the past, the Time Thingy doesn’t work, and there’s no one here who can help you. Fine, good, yes, good. Ugh...”

Then Steven remembered. There was one person who he knew could help him.

\---

Pearl lunged her sword forward.

“And then, we strike the Sapphire and destroy her form, an example for- Rose are you listening?” Pearl asked with coy smile.

“Oh, right!” Rose Quartz said, “Yes, I love it. Very theatrical and poignant.”

They were inside the Crystal Gems’ secret desert base, deep within the Sahara. It had been their headquarters since the beginning of the Rebellion.

“I thought you would,” Pearl said, walking up to Rose.

Rose was standing over a makeshift table that they had been using to plan attacks. This one wouldn’t be their biggest, but it would be the first one directed solely at the aristocracy of Homeworld. Getting them to fear the Rebellion would be good, and getting friends in high places would be even better.

“Are you sure our source is reliable?” Rose asked.

“She should be. That Agate has good standing in Blue Diamond’s court. She has nothing to gain from setting us up.”

“I hope you’re right. When does the Sapphire arrive?”

“About five Earth days, including this one.”

“That’ll give us time to perfect our strategy.”

\---

Steven thought about using a warp pad, but decided that would draw too much attention to himself. He wasn’t even sure about where he would be going. He was unclear on where exactly the Crystal Gems were based in this time period, and the Earth was a big planet. Then he overheard two Peridots talking.

“When does that transport over to Facet 18 leave?”

“10 minutes. Why?”

“I hear they’re testing out the new sand-controlling Gem class out there. They haven’t installed a warp yet so the only way there’s via transport shuttle.”

“Oh yeah I read reports about them. They say the Bismuths might go obsolete in a few decades.”

“They’re always saying that. Besides, they’ll only be obsolete for desert construction. Everything else is fair game.”

“Right, right…”

The conversation reminded Steven of a certain place he had recently learned about: Rose’s desert fortress. In the present, it was dilapidated and filled with junk, but now that he thought about it, it seemed to be a dead ringer for a Crystal Gem headquarters. He didn’t know this for sure exactly, but a hunch was better than nothing.

Steven quietly snuck his way to the Kindergarten’s launch pads, where a transport shuttle was waiting.

“Last call for Transport Flight 72B for Facet 18, last call,” he heard a voice say as hid behind a dead tree.

He then heard the shuttle’s doors slam shut and the engines begin to fire up. It was now or never.

Steven made a break for the craft’s landing gear, grabbing on right before it blasted off into the sky.

Luckily, the gear retracted before Steven even had a chance to let out a scream, but suddenly the boy began feeling very cold and out of breath. In response, he summoned his bubble, which generated moderate heat and oxygen for him. 

Steven collapsed onto the floor and exhaled. He wished he could just wake up back home, in bed, in the present. To distract himself, he took out his phone and went to his Photos app to look at some funny comics he had saved. 

Unfortunately, his most recent picture was a group selfie he had taken with the main three Crystal Gems, which just made his heart sink even more.

\---

The shuttle’s landing gear swung open with a jolt, nearly flinging Steven clear off. After hanging on for dear life for the third time that day, Steven quickly stumbled off the shuttle upon its landing and hid in the desert bushes.

Large floodlights were pointed at a patch of desert sand in front of the landing pad. Numerous Gems were gathered to watch as a Peridot (who had a visor just like his Peridot) stood at a podium.

“Agates, Quartzes, fellow Kindergarteners,” the Peridot said as Steven scoped out the area, “Tonight, I present to you a brand new Gem type, fresh out of the Mogordia Colony’s Prime Kindergarten: Trinitite!”

She gestured behind her as a massive sand structure began to take shape. Once it completed, the crowd clapped politely.

Three Gems, presumably Trinitites, stepped out of the darkness and bowed.

It was then that Steven heard a familiar voice.

“You will stop this ravaging of the Earth’s landscapes this instant!” Rose Quartz shouted, descending from the twilight sky.

The Quartzes in the crowd took out their weapons, and the higher-ranking and non-fighting Gems made a break for the shuttle.

Rose touched down on the sand, summoning her shield and giving a daring smile. Steven looked on in awe as his mother took on the soldiers hand-to-hand, often using her shield as an offensive weapon rather than a defensive one.

After she had poofed all the fighters, Rose threw her shield like a frisbee, hitting the Trinitites and destroying their forms, causing the desert structure to collapse.

“Make the Bismuths obsolete, my butt,” Rose said, admiring her handiwork.

The shuttle took off, flying away into the darkening sky. Steven realized that he and Rose were alone.

“Uh… Hi!” Steven said awkwardly, standing up out of the bushes.

“Well hello there,” Rose said, putting away her shield and walking up to Steven, “What are you doing around here? Probably trying to find some water, I’ll bet.”

Steven thought for a moment. He actually wasn’t sure how to go about this.

“I’m from the future,” he stammered out, “I’m…actually your son.” 

“A son?” she asked before bursting into laughter.

Rose kneeled down to Steven’s level.

“Where are you from? I bet your parents are pretty worried.”

The look on Steven’s face became one of determination.

“A place called Beach City,” Steven said with a tinge of anger, “Fifty-seven hundred and fifty years from now.”

“Oh you humans have such active imaginations. I must be going; reinforcements will be here soon. Bye-bye!”

As Rose began to walk away, Steven summoned his shield and threw it at the back of her head.

“What the-” Rose said as she turned around, seeing Steven catch the shield on the rebound. She summoned her shield for comparison. They were identical. 

Steven pulled up his shirt, revealing the Rose Quartz gem embedded into his skin.

“Who...are you?” Rose said, almost speechless.

Steven shed a tear.

“My name is Steven,” he said, walking up to her, “And I’m your son.”


	4. Erased From Existence

Rose knelt down and examined Steven’s gem.

“That’s me…” she said, a strange mixture of confused, sad, happy, and curious.

“It can’t be anyone else,” she continued, “They were all…”

Before Rose could finish that sentence, the sound of a dropship was heard approaching from the distance.

“Reinforcements are almost here… Come with me,” Rose said, extending her hand out to Steven.

Steven paused for a moment, before taking his mother’s hand as she leapt off into the night.

While they were in the air, it seemed like they were hugging. Neither knew how to feel, but Steven still smiled. For the first time after his arrival, he thought he might get some help.

Rose touched down outside of the desert fortress. Steven was still holding on to her.

“Uh…” Rose said, causing Steven to let go.

“Oh, right, right,” Steven said, awkwardly running his fingers through his hair, “I...guess you have a lot of questions.”

“You could say that…” Rose said, a slight smile creeping across her face, “So I have a son… A human son. In the Zoo I always admired that ability…”

Rose’s face suddenly became very serious.

“So if you have my gem, then does that mean I’m...dead?”

“Kind of,” Steven answered, “I don’t really understand it myself to be honest.”

Then it truly hit Steven how remarkable this situation really was. For the first time in his entire life, he was able to meet his mother. No more illusions in the Temple Room, no more tapes to analyze, no more guesswork based on stories or past actions: This was the real deal.

He ran forward and gave Rose a big hug. Rose still wasn’t sure how to deal with this, but before she could react, her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of Pearl calling her name.

“Rose? Rose, is that you?”

“It’s Pearl…” Steven said.

Steven, as much as he would have loved to see Pearl again after a day like this, realized that the last thing she needed during this time was a small boy claiming to be her lover’s son.

“I can’t let her see me!” Steven exclaimed as quietly as he could.

“There’s a door over on the back side of the fortress. Go there,” Rose said, thinking fast.

Just as Steven ran out of sight, Pearl opened the front entrance (which at this time did not have a key lock).

“Oh hi!” Rose called out, “What a lovely and unexpected surprise seeing you ‘round here this time of night!”

“I don’t see what’s so surprising about it, but anyway, how was the attack?” Pearl asked, walking up to Rose.

“It went well! I… Let’s go inside.”

Rose grabbed Pearl by the arm and ran inside the fortress.

“Now, now, what’s all this?” Pearl asked, smiling.

“Pearl, I...think you should...go have your swords sharpened.”

“Okay, I’ll see to it later.”

“I think you should see to it now. We need to be in top condition for the upcoming attack.”

Pearl blinked.

“Alright then!” she said, shrugging and going off to grab her swords.

\---

After Pearl had left, Rose let Steven in through the rear entrance she had told him about.

The door led into a backroom she had been using as a makeshift office. After they sat down, they both went quiet for a few minutes, unsure of what to say. Rose was the one who broke the silence.

“So if you’re my future son,” she began, “Then how did you get here?”

“With this,” Steven said, pulling the Time Thingy out of his pocket.

“I don’t think it’s been invented yet,” he continued as Rose examined the device, “At least not for a couple hundred years maybe. And even then Peridot said there were only two made. The first I destroyed...kind of...and this one, well, it worked but now it doesn’t.”

“I see,” Rose said, “How does it work, exactly?”

Steven gave a shrug and weakly said, “I don’t really know.”

Then he remembered something from earlier, back in the Sea Temple.

“But I think I know someone who does…”

\---

“Hey guys! It’s Steven Universe and the Crystal Gems!” Steven’s voice rang out through his phone. He was playing back the video he had recorded during the mission, which he recalled including much of Peridot’s techno-speak. Rose watched the video with intense curiosity.

“Hi!” Peridot waved.

“Oh hello!” Pearl said, blushing.

“Yo,” Garnet said, pointing at the camera.

“Wait, stop the video,” Rose said, moving in closer, “Who is that?”

“Oh, that’s Garnet… She’s a fusion of Ruby and Sapphire.”

“A Cross-Gem fusion...” Rose mused. She had pondered the idea before, but the possibility of one existing had always been a mystery.

“How did she...happen?” Rose asked.

“Well,” Steven began, trying to remember the story Garnet told him, “During an attack on Blue Diamond’s place, Sapphire was about to be poofed-”

“Poofed?”

“Oh, um, well, that’s what I call it when a Gem’s form gets destroyed.”

Rose chuckled a little. She would have to start using that term, she thought.

“Anyway, Sapphire was about to be poofed, but Ruby pushed her out of the way and they fused right then and there.”

“During an attack on Blue Diamond?” Rose asked out loud, “That’s not for another…” 

Rose paused to count on her fingers. 

“...four days! Well, not counting this one.”

While they were talking, Steven’s phone had gone into Sleep Mode. He pressed the power button and the screen lit back up, the selfie of him and the three main Crystal Gems as his wallpaper. He was about to slide the slider to unlock it when Rose spotted something odd.

“Wait,” she said, “Look at Garnet’s head.”

Steven looked at the screen again and saw that the top half of Garnet’s head was completely gone.

“What the-?” Steven asked, looking closer at the picture.

The story Garnet had told him just a little while earlier suddenly flashed before his eyes.

“And for her heroic actions, she was given a very prestigious assignment…” Garnet had said.

Then it hit him.

In-Charge Ruby’s words, “When we get back I am removing you from the Sapphire guarding detail,” echoed through his mind.

“I messed it up...” Steven quietly said.

“What?” Rose asked.

“I messed it up! Ruby was supposed to save her platoon from falling off a cliff but I pushed her out of the way and now she’s not going to guard Sapphire and now Garnet’s not going to exist and-”

Rose grabbed Steven by the shoulders, since he was rambling with worry now and that wasn’t good.

“It’s...going to be okay...” she asked, trying her very best to be “motherly.”

“It’s not,” Steven said with even more worry in his voice than earlier.

He remembered what Sapphire’s prediction to Blue Diamond was, and how Ruby pushing her out of the way prevented it from coming true.

“If Ruby and Sapphire don’t fuse then the Rebellion is going to be crushed…”

“Wait, what?!”

Steven hopped onto his feet and began quickly explaining.

“Sapphire predicted, or at least WILL predict, that the Rebellion would be stopped when they attacked the Sky Arena, but Ruby saving her caused that to be wrong, and now that’s not going to happen!”

Rose’s face went blank. If this boy was telling the truth, then everything she had been doing for the past 250 years would be for nothing. Then she got an idea.

“Steven,” she began, “Do you know what happened to this Ruby after you pushed her?”

“She got reassigned, I think.”

“The attack on Blue Diamond’s court isn’t for another four days. She just needs to be on that escort detail in time.”

Steven smiled after thinking over what she had just said. This was the first thing Rose had told him that day that was genuinely reassuring.

“That...shouldn’t be difficult,” he said, “Right?”

“Right. Now all we have to do is figure out how to get this time...thingy of yours working again.”

“Oh, right!”

Steven went back to his phone and pulled up the video they had been watching. He skipped to the part where Peridot was looking for the Time Thingy and ranting about sciencey stuff.

“Alright, this is it.”

“Ugh, I can’t find it!” Peridot said in the recording, “Whoever organized this place was nuts! I’d sure like to go back 5,750 years and give them a piece of my mind.”

“Wait, what?” Steven had asked.

“That’s how old this place is. I can’t believe what passed for organization back then… A device that contains enough energy to power an entire kindergarten-”

“Enough power to WHAT???” Rose exclaimed.

Steven paused the video, taken aback with surprise.

“What’s wrong?”

Rose stood up and almost tripped over backwards.

“Do you know how much power it takes to run a kindergarten?”

“Not offhand, no…”

“Neither do I but I’m pretty sure it’s a high number.”

“Well…” Steven began, trying to think of a solution out loud, “I’ve seen where the power source in the Prime Kindergarten is… We could use that.”

Rose kneeled down to Steven’s level.

“Steven, I’m sure that over 5,000 years from now you can waltz right into any old kindergarten and do whatever you want, but right now it’s kind of a tall order.”

Rose sat down and pressed her palm against her face.

“We haven’t been able to get a single ally from that place. I mean, the only Gems that are even allowed in there nowadays are Quartz guards, Agates, Rubies, Peridots-”

“Wait, what was that third one?”

“Rubies, but I don’t-”

Then they both realized: If the plan worked and Steven really was able to help Ruby, then they would already have an ally in the Prime Kindergarten.

At least, they hoped they would.


	5. Your Destiny

“Okay,” Steven told himself as he walked through the woods, “All you have to do is find Ruby, get her to save the day somehow, which will make her a hero and get her guarding Sapphire on her visit, while also convincing her to give you information on the Kindergarten so you can get home. That’s easy, right? Right?”

Steven reached the edge of the cliff overlooking the Prime Kindergarten. There are a LOT of Gems there.

“Ho boy…”

Then, as if an answer to his prayers, a familiar, loud voice rang through his ears. He looked down and spotted Ruby, walking haphazardly through the crowd. Someone bumped into her.

“Hey!” she shouted, “I’m walking here, I’m-”

Ruby looked up and realized that the Gem who she had ran into was an Amethyst, a particular large Amethyst at that.

“-just going to walk away now, hehe!”

Steven discreetly slid down the rock wall, touching down and hiding behind a dead tree. Just as Ruby walked by it, Steven popped out in front of her.

“Hey!” he exclaimed, “How’s- how’s- how’s it going?”

Ruby just ignored him and continued on her way.

This was going to be harder than he thought, Steven decided.

“C’mon, I just wanna talk!” Steven pleaded, chasing Ruby into an empty corner, “You can’t tell me Gems don’t talk to humans sometimes.”

Ruby suddenly exploded into a fit of rage.

“This couldn’t GET any worse!” she shouted, “Every time… Every time I get some sort of worthwhile assignment, something stupid happens and I end up being handed off to the nearest Agate, to be someone else’s problem!”

Ruby punched the wall and grumbled.

“I have to get back to work…” Ruby said, walking away in a huff.

“Wait!” Steven called out, chasing after her.

As he followed Ruby into the main region of the kindergarten, Steven took great care to remain out of sight, while still trying to talk to her.

“I can help you,” Steven tried to say.

“I think you’ve helped quite enough today,” Ruby said under her breath.

“What?”

“I’m not stupid,” she continued, “I know you were the human who stopped me from saving my platoon.”

“I thought I was saving you!”

“Well that’s turned out perfectly, now hasn’t it?”

“Okay, I screwed up, but I can make it up to you.”

“How?”

“I can get you back to your old assignment.”

“Really?!”

Ruby covered her mouth and hoped nobody noticed her public outburst. She quickly went behind the rock where Steven was.

“Wait,” she said, “How in the Stars are you going to do that?”

“I…” Steven began before trailing off. He hadn’t actually thought it through this far.

“I’m going to...make you...a hero!”

“A hero…” Ruby mused, staring at her feet.

“Yes!” Steven exclaimed, now thoroughly entrenched in the hole he dug for himself, “You’ll defend thousands from deadly threats! And…people will love you! And…you’ll be happy!” These weren’t technically lies, he figured.

Ruby was now smiling wildly as she fantasized about all this.

“You can really do that for me?” she asked, blinded by the mere suggestion.

“Sure!”

“Wait, how exactly can you do that?”

“I...happen to have knowledge of...of a Crystal Gem attack...on this very kindergarten!”

Ruby gasped.

“We need to warn the others!”

“Ah,” Steven said, now getting into the whole matchmaker role, “But who will they have defend the place? The Amethysts, and the...other Quartzes, right? You can be the little Ruby that could! The one that defended the empire...and all that.”

The shrill voice of an Agate rang through the kindergarten.

“Ruby-3C8Y, Cut-9ES! You’re late reporting in!”

“I have to go,” Ruby said, “But we can talk some more later.”

As Ruby ran off, Steven pulled out his phone and checked the picture of the Crystal Gems. Garnet was completely gone from the waist up.

\---

“Wait, an attack on where?” Rose asked as she continued examine the Time Thingy in her backroom.

“The Kindergarten…” Steven answered weakly.

“Nobody would love an attack on that place more than me,” Rose said, “But I’m afraid that’s just not in the cards right now.”

“It doesn’t have to be a real one… And even then Ruby can probably give us the information.”

“I hope so,” Rose said, holding up the Time Thingy, “If what I remember is right, then that’s the only place on the planet that’ll be powerful enough to activate this thing.” Rose let out a chuckle.

“I’m not even sure how to connect it to the power crystal down there… Pearl’s usually the one that handles this stuff.”

Steven sat down next to his mom and smiled a little. He was finally able to see his mom as a real person, away from the rose-colored glasses (no pun intended) that everyone in his family had seen her through. And to be honest, he kinda liked her.

“I can probably get a mini power-cell later and run some tests. And maybe ask Pearl some inconspicuous questions.”

“Thanks for not telling her about me right now,” Steven said, looking up at Rose.

“I was going to ask about that,” Rose began, “About...a lot of things, really.”

“I don’t think I should tell you things about the future…” Steven said, “I know you wanna know, but it really isn’t a good idea to mess with time. I mean, that’s how I ended up having to bluff my way through a Ruby pep-talk.”

Steven knew there were so many things he could tell Rose about- Corruption, Bismuth, The Cluster... -and part of him wanted to, but he knew that would cause even more problems, ones that might not be as fixable.

“Just tell me one thing then,” Rose said, looking Steven in the eye, “Who’s your father going to be?”

Steven smiled again. Giving her name wouldn’t hurt that much.

“Greg Universe.”

“Universe… Such a nice name.”

“Actually,” Steven said, “The family name was originally DeMayo.”

Rose almost burst into laughter.

“DeMayo?”

“He changed it to Universe by the time you met him. Or will meet him, I guess.”

Steven yawned.

“I should probably take a nap soon. Later I’m going to go and talk to Ruby again.”

“I’ll be out practicing with Pearl then,” Rose said.

She gave an awkward smile.

“Sweet dreams?”

“Yeah...Sweet dreams,” Steven said as he laid down on the makeshift bed Rose had made for him, and quickly went to sleep.

\---

Rose met Pearl outside of the fortress.

“What have you been doing in there?” Pearl asked with a teasing smile.

“Oh just...going over the raiding schedules for the next couple days.”

“Ah. Shall we be off now?”

Rose seemed to be lost in thought, though Pearl thought nothing suspicious of it.

“Rose?” Pearl asked.

“Oh, yes, yes, of course.”

Rose looked back at the fortress, and upon realizing that a child- her -child was asleep inside, she felt something she never thought she would feel: She felt Human.


	6. If You Put Your Mind To It...

“I want this Injector polished until it shines,” the Agate ordered.

Ruby grumbled silently and got to work, the sun beginning to set.

“Well what do we have here?” a familiar voice asked.

Ruby turned and saw Eyeball, swaggering in like she owned the place.

“Go away, I’m working,” Ruby muttered weakly.

“Now, now,” Eyeball said, “That’s no way to address a superior.”

“We’re the same rank.”

“Not anymore. I just made Platoon Commander.”

“Well congratu- Wait, how in the Stars did you do that?”

“Oh, it was nothing; Just being better than you!” Eyeball laughed, before murmuring, “And a couple bribes here and there…”

“What?!” Ruby exclaimed, “I’ve been working hard my entire life to get this far, and you just bri-”

“HELP!” Eyeball called out, “This lowly soldier is attacking me! Help!”

She got down on the ground and dirtied herself up.

“And, if you’ve forgotten,” she whispered, “I’m also on the Sapphire detail in a few days, so bribery or not, I’ll have been more successful in a week than you’ll be in your entire existence.”

Ruby wanted to say something, but just looked sadly at the ground as her Agate marched in.

“What’s this shouting all about?” she demanded to know, “This is a kindergarten, not an arena for clods!”

Eyeball got up and made the Diamond salute.

“This off-color Ruby pushed me to the ground,” she said, “for no reason!”

“That’s it,” the Agate said, “Now you have to clean the entire Kindergarten Control Room, in addition to the injectors.”

Ruby let out a restrained whimper.

“I will attend to it immediately,” Ruby said, weakly making the Diamond Salute before turning back to her scrubbing.

Steven popped out from behind a nearby rock the moment the Agate and Eyeball walked off.

“Hey, Ruby!” Steven whispered.

“Go away, I’m working,” Ruby whispered back.

“I just wanna talk,” Steven said as he tried not to be seen by any of the other Gems going about the Kindergarten.

“Fine. Talk.”

“Okay, now I know you don’t really like what you’re doing now…”

“Oh really?” Ruby muttered, “I thought I was enjoying it.”

“But if you do exactly as I say,” Steven said in the most convincing voice he could muster, “I can make you happy beyond your wildest dreams...”

“Dreams?”

“Right, Gems don’t usually sleep. Uh, anyway, about that attack-”

“Yeah, how do you even know about that?”

“It's a long story.”

“Well I certainly got the time for it.”

Steven was starting to get frustrated.

“Look,” Steven said, “Do you wanna be a hero or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, ‘The Ruby That Could’ and all that. Why are you so obsessed with helping me?”

“It's a-”

“Long story. Uh-huh. I would LOVE to believe in your crazy fantasies, but I have injectors to polish.”

Steven gave Ruby a disappointed scowl and walked off behind the rocks.

As Steven made his way back to the nearest Crystal Gem warp pad, he started talking to himself.

“Errg,” Steven groaned, “Why is she so difficult?!”

He kicked the dirt beneath him.

“I know Ruby's not the most rational Gem in the world, but you’d think she'd be more...accommodating, I guess? Why can't she just listen?!”

Steven sat down on a log.

“I wish I could just wake up and find out this is all just a dream…”

Steven then looked up in realization.

“That's it!”

\---

“And that's one...hundred!” Ruby said as she finished polishing her 100th injector in the Kindergarten.

She sat down on a nearby rock and rested. Her hands were worn and tired. Ruby closed her eyes as the moon rose in front of her.

“Ruuuuuuubbbiiiiiieeee…” she heard a voice call out to her.

She opened her eyes and found herself in an endless void of pink clouds. A hooded figure floated above her.

“Where am I?! Who are you??? I-”

“Silence!” the figure cried out in a fake-sounding, high-pitched voice, “It is I, the space goddess of...of...space! And I am here to inform you of your destiny!”

“Destiny? What are you talking about?”

“You must get your old job back and guard Sapphire. Or else BAAAAAAAD things will happen! BAD THIIIIIIINGS! Just listen to The Steven! He knows all…”

The figure faded away into the clouds and Ruby was forced back into reality.

“9ES!” her Agate shouted, “Back to work!”

“Y-yes, of course!”

Meanwhile, at Rose’s desert fortress, Steven was waking up.

“Did it work?” Rose asked him.

“I hope so. I've only done that three times before and only once when the person wasn't actually sleeping.”

“Well while you were asleep,” Rose said, heading to a small box on the other side of the room, “I gave this one more look over before I test it.”

She held up a small power cell strapped to the Time Thingy. It looked a little like the engine of Peridot’s ship, but miniaturized and less-streamlined.

“It was nothing short of a miracle that I got my hands on one of these.”

She connected a tube from the power cell to the Time Thingy, and it started to glow.

Rose set it down on a table in the far corner and quickly went back over to Steven.

“Now stand back!”

Steven stepped backwards and hid behind his mother, wincing as the device powered up. Suddenly, a small explosion went off within the power cell and the Time Thingy was sent flying throughout the room. Both Steven and Rose summoned their shields instinctively, but this was unnecessary since it just landed in the sand in front of them, mostly undamaged.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Steven asked, dematerializing his shield.

“It will work, Steven,” Rose said, picking the Time Thingy up, “I...just need to ask Pearl some more questions.”

“Right,” Steven said as he sat back down on his makeshift bed, “I think I have a plan for how I’m going to get Ruby her job back.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, don’t worry; You won’t have to do anything. Since I’m human, I can easily get into the Kindergarten unnoticed.”

Rose nodded. She knew more than anyone else how little other Gems cared about humankind.

“So, I’ll put on a disguise, like a cloak or something, make myself taller so they think I’m you, and then pretend-attack the Kindergarten! I’ll make sure Ruby gets the drop on me, I act all defeated and retreat, and then everyone will be so amazed that a Ruby could defeat Rose Quartz, that she’ll be able to get her job back!”

“Steven,” Rose said, looking her future son right in the eyes, “That’s a terrible plan.”


	7. A Little Self-Confidence

The next day, Steven paid another visit to the Kindergarten.

As he stealthily walked in, he checked the photo on his phone. Garnet was now completely gone, and the top of Pearl’s head was starting to disappear. He shook his head and made his way to where Ruby was.

“Hey!” Ruby called out, before quickly lowering her voice to a less conspicuous volume, “Hey, human!”

“Yeah?” Steven said, running up to her but still remaining out of sight.

“The Space Goddess of Space came to me in a vision-!”

“A dream,” Steven corrected.

“Yeah I guess, and she told me that I just HAD to get my old job back because of some ‘destiny’ thing, and that you’d help me!”

“She did, did she?”

“Sorry, I didn’t believe you before when you said you could make me a hero. Now I’m just so excited that I haven’t been able to focus and now I’m rambling and I-”

“Relax, Ruby,” Steven said, “Now let’s get to work. Uh, this is gonna be awkward if I have to hide most of the time.”

“Oh don’t worry, today I’m cleaning the control room and the Peridots are busy injecting the next section of Quartzes, so it should be empty. We can go over the plan in there.”

“Perfect!” Steven exclaimed before covering his mouth and hoping nobody heard him.

“Come on,” Ruby said gesturing Steven to follow to the square hole in the ground.

He did, and quickly slid down the shaft, Ruby following close behind.

“Who are you, again?” Ruby asked on the way down, “Sorry, I can barely remember my own ID number most of the time.”

“Steven,” Steven answered, extending his hand for Ruby to shake once they reached the bottom.

Ruby just looked at it in confusion.

“Oh, it’s a human thing,” Steven clarified, “Just shake it.”

Ruby shrugged and shook Steven’s hand.

“Good,” Steven said, “Now let’s get to work.”

As Ruby got out her laser scrubber and began to polish the tubing along the control room walls, Steven went over the scenario he had thought up (conveniently leaving out the fact that HE would be playing Rose Quartz).

“So Rose Quartz, rebel leader, is just going to attack the Kindergarten single-handedly?”

“Y-yeah! Those rebels, am I right?”

“I guess… But how can I ever hope to defeat Rose Quartz? She’s like, twenty times taller than me!”

“Don’t worry,” Steven assured her, “She’ll be...much easier to defeat than you’re expecting.”

“Really?”

“Really. C’mon, Ruby, you got this!”

“I got this! But wait, when is this going to happen exactly?”

Steven froze. That part had slipped his mind. So he decided to bluff is way through this.

“When…the...guards...go on their break!” Steven said with a toothy grin.

“Oh, so in three days?”

“Yeah!” Steven exclaimed before muttering, “That’ll be cutting it kinda close, but okay…”

“What?”

“Nothing, nothing. It’s just that Sapphire also arrives in three days, so if you wanna get your job back before then we gotta time it right. Now let’s go over the plan…”

\---

Meanwhile in the desert, Rose threw the fried power cell to the ground and sighed.

“This isn’t going to work…” she said to herself.

“What’s not going to work?” Pearl asked as she entered the fortress.

“Oh, uh, remember how I asked about that power cell because I was…”

“Experimenting with a new type of light cannon?”

“Yeah, yeah, that. Only, when I connected the power cell to the input, it, well, did this!”

Rose gestured down at the charred power cell, and Pearl picked it up to inspect it.

“Hmm,” Pearl said, “Ah, I see. The problem here is that you tried to make it a direct connection to the power cell by rerouting one of the fuel tubes, when the more stable way would be to utilize an indirect access port, like an energy transfer panel.”

“Like one of those hand-activators Homeworld uses?”

“Yeah! That should do it. Stars, I’ll even help!”

“No!” Rose blurted out, “I mean, no, while I’d love for you to help...I need you to be focused for the attack on the Sky Arena in three days.”

“Right, I should probably go over the plans again,” Pearl said as she went to the far corner of the room, where their battle plans were laid out.

“That’s my Pearl,” Rose said with a relieved, yet adoring smile.

\---

“Hey, I remember this,” Steven said as he examined the Kindergarten’s central computer.

“What was that?” Ruby asked from a darkened corner of the room, still working on cleaning the walls.

“Nothing, nothing! Now let’s get back to work.”

“I’m already working!”

“I mean on your attack strategy.”

“Oh right, right!” Ruby corrected herself, jumping out from the corner.

“So,” Steven continued, “I- I mean, Rose Quartz -will be cloaked and attack the Kindergarten just as the Quartz guards are changing shifts. Her primary target? Eyeball’s- I mean, Ruby-4ND’s -platoon.”

“Why them?”

“Because...umm...”

“Oh yeah, they’ll be making a fuel stopover here before heading to the Galaxy Warp.”

“Good, good,” Steven said, holding back a sigh of relief, “Now, after Rose takes out 4ND, there’ll be an empty spot to fill in Sapphire’s guards, which you will do after you successfully scare her off!”

“How in the Stars will I do that?”

“You’ll take her by surprise! Believe me, I was able to get her entire attack plan. She...tells humans like me everything!”

“Alright,” Ruby said, summoning her gauntlet, “How’s this gonna go down?”

“Okay,” Steven began, “so as the guards are changing shifts, Rose Quartz will descend from the cliffside and attack the Rubies.”

“Uh-huh.”

“She’ll knock out 4ND, the others will cower in fear, and then you, their savior, will leap out dramatically, prepare your gauntlet, and then punch her right in the shield!”

“Yeah! Wait, why her shield?”

“Because...she’ll have turned around already! This is Rose Quartz we’re talking about, of course.”

“So then I punch her in the shield, she falls over, retreats in defeat…”

“And you get praised so much that you get you job back and fulfill your destiny!”

“My destiny! What is a destiny, anyway?”

“Uh...I’ll explain it to you later. Now we just have to practice for the next three days, and we're in the clear!”

“Are you sure this is gonna work?” Ruby asked.

Steven shrugged.

“I’d bet my life on it.”


	8. Everything Will Be Fine

Three days later…

“It is I!” Steven proclaimed in the still-empty Kindergarten control room, “The villainous Rose Quartz!” He was standing atop the computer’s hand-panel, and leaped down onto the floor.

Steven made a strangling motion with his hand, saying, “Take this, puny soldier!”

“Hold it right there!” Ruby shouted, leaping out from behind a power coil.

“It's supposed to be a surprise,” Steven whispered.

“Oh, right, right,” Ruby whispered back.

She then silently ran forward, gauntlet out, stopping right before hitting Steven.

“Was that good?” Ruby asked.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Good. Oh Stars, I can't wait for tonight!” Ruby exclaimed with glee, “I get to be a hero and scare Rose Quartz, then I get to guard Sapphire, maybe get to defend her from some rebels… Ooh! And I might even get to fuse!”

“Heh-heh,” Steven laughed, “You just might…”

“I hope it's with 6DE and 8ZB,” Ruby continued, “They’re a bit on the dumb side, but they're alright.”

“I thought the Rubies on Earth weren't very nice?”

“Where'd you get that from?” Ruby asked before turning back to her work, “Anyway, they're not the greatest Rubies in the world, but they aren't the worst either.”

Steven stood in silence for a few seconds, breaking the silence by saying, “Well I better be off now…”

Ruby didn't hear him at first, as she was focusing back to polishing the control room.

\---

Steven inconspicuously emerged from the shaft leading down to the control room, and was met with the sight of a massive injector passing overhead, flanked on all sides by Peridots.

“C’mon you clods,” one of them shouted, “The 8X’s gotta be injected today, or we’ll never make quota!”

“The 8X’s…” Steven quietly repeated to himself. He didn't know why, but that phrase reminded him of something familiar. Finding himself overcome by curiosity, he covertly followed the Peridots to their destination.

He found that the Peridots and the Injector were too fast for him to keep up while still remaining in hiding. By the time he reached where they were, they were well into the process of injecting Gems into the Earth.

“Amethyst-8XH...” a Peridot said as the Injector drilled into the rock walls.

“I know those numbers...” Steven asked himself from behind a rock.

“Amethyst-8XI…” the Peridot continued as more Gems were shot into the rock, “8XJ...8XK...8XL…”

Suddenly, the Injector lost its grip on the wall and slid down to the very bottom, injecting one more Gem right before it smashed to pieces.

“8X...Hey!” the Peridot in-charge shouted, “Are you clods gem-dead?! Ugh, at least we finished this column. Come now, let’s get someone to clean this mess up...”

As the Peridots frustratingly walked off, Steven felt himself drawn to the small hole drilled at the base of the grey canyon wall.

“Amethyst…” he quietly said, brushing his hand over the hole. He realized who’s hole this was.

This was his Amethyst. The one who had fought with him as Purple Puma. The one who The one who fused with him to become Smoky Quartz. The one waiting for him 5,750 years in the future, along with all the other Crystal Gems. Steven felt tears in his eyes.

“I’ll see ya later, Amethyst…” Steven said as he patted the spot where the small Quartz would emerge over a thousand years later.

\---

“Hey, Steven!” Ruby called out. Steven was in the field just outside of the Kindergarten, and Ruby was running after him.

“Ruby?” Steven remarked, “You're supposed to be on duty right now.”

“I know, I just had to say...uh...I appreciate how you've helped me. I know I only agreed to this because of some Space Goddess telling me in some ‘dream’ thing...but you've been really great to me and-”

“Alright, alright,” Steven interrupted, starting to tear up, “This is getting mushy. Not that I have a problem with that, but you'd better get back to work.”

“Yeah…” Ruby trailed off before embracing Steven in a hug.

“Aw, thanks Ruby,” Steven said with a smile, “Good luck tonight, by the way.”

“Luck?” Ruby said, pulling back.

“Oh, it’s a human thing… Just stick to the plan, okay?”

“Okay!” Ruby confirmed, running back to the Kindergarten.

Steven took out his phone and checked the photo. Not only was Garnet gone now, but Pearl too. Amethyst’s head had disappeared. It made sense, Steven figured in a somber realization, because if the rebellion was crushed and the colony continued as planned, Amethyst would have emerged into a populated Prime Kindergarten. And due to her defect, she would have been shattered. Steven shook his head and put the phone back in his pocket.

\---

Back in the desert, Steven arrived at the backdoor of the fortress and let himself in. Rose was inside, posing dramatically with her shield.

“Hello Steven!” she said, startled, “How was your visit with Ruby?”

“It was good! I think we’re really gonna nail it tonight. What are you doing?”

“Oh just practicing for our attack on the Sky Arena later. Pearl’s busy trying to pick the right sword from the armory.”

“At least some things never change,” Steven chuckled.

“Same old Pearl, I suppose,” Rose said with a giggle.

“I know right? She spent two weeks trying to pick an outfit!”

“I take it she was regenerating?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah Pearl… I love that about her.”

After a brief moment of silence, Rose spoke again.

“So,” she began to ask Steven, “why was Pearl regenerating? I know I shouldn’t ask about the future, but you got me curious.”

“Oh, I asked to see some of her sword moves after watching a Lonely Blade movie but I distracted her and one of the Holo Pearls, uh…”

“I see, I see…” Rose said.

“Wanna see some of my moves?” Steven suddenly asked.

“Okay,” Rose answered, sitting down to watch.

Steven summoned his shield and ran forward. He threw the shield down on the floor and jumped on top of it, standing on top of it as it quickly slid across. Steven then jumped off just before it hit the wall and dissipated in a flash of light. Doing a cartwheel as he made contact, Steven rolled back the way he came, posing in front of Rose.

“Impressive,” Rose said, “I might have to try that someday.”

Steven chuckled at that, imagining the elegant Rose Quartz using her shield as a sled during the heat of battle.

“Wanna see something even better?”

“Sure.”

Steven summoned his shield again, and threw it across the room. It bounced across the walls repeatedly until it headed straight for Rose, causing her to summon her own shield to block it. Steven’s shield, therefore, ricocheted back towards him. Steven caught it with his bare hands, sending him into the wall.

“Steven, are you okay?” Rose asked worriedly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Steven said as he got up, “I’m alright. That pushback is rough.”

Rose chuckled a little and, with a devious smile, held up her shield in a defensive posture.

“En garde!” Rose said.

“What?”

“It’s something Pearl says when we spar. I think it’s European.”

“Oh I get it,” Steven said, summoning his shield back into existence and forming an equally devious smile.

At once, Steven and Rose charged at each other, their identical shields colliding but successfully holding each other back.

“You're good…” Rose said, pushing her shield against Steven’s, “I guess you take it from my side of the gene pool.”

“You aren't too bad yourself,” Steven quipped.

“If this how you stand against a Quartz,” Rose continued as she slowly gained the advantage against Steven, “Then I can only imagine what you’ll accomplish in the future!”

Suddenly, Steven began substantially pushing back against Rose. As her feet slid backwards across the sand, her face lit up in genuine surprise. Rose pushed even harder, but rather than advance against Steven, they remained in the same place, pushing with equal strength.

“I think…” Steven said, quickly tiring out, “We’ve reached an impasse.”

“I think so too,” Rose said as she and Steven both dissipated their shields, “You’re just as strong as me, it seems. Pearl must be a good teacher.”

Steven gave a half-hearted chuckle as he thought about what just happened, “Yeah, she sure is.”

“Rose?” Pearl called out from the other room.

“Oh Stars, she’s back,” Rose cursed under her breath.

“Rose, I think I found the two swords that are both menacing and elegant! Where are you?”

“I’m in here!” Rose called out, “I’ll be out in a second, I’m just finishing up something.”

“Okay!” Pearl replied. Rose turned back to Steven.

“It’s time for me to leave for the Sky Arena. We can’t go by warp pad, so the trip will take-”

“I get it, I get it,” Steven reassured her, “Where’s the Time Thingy?”

“Over here,” Rose said as she took it out of a nearby crate, “All you have to do is place it on the hand scanner in the Kindergarten control room and it will activate.”

“Then I just think of the time and place I want to go to and it’ll take me back?”

“I believe so.”

“Rose, we’re going to miss our attack window!” Pearl called out again.

“Not for another minute!” Rose called back in her usual assuring voice.

“So...I guess this is goodbye,” Steven said somberly.

“I guess it is…”

“I want something to remember this by,” Steven said as he took out his phone and went to the camera mode, “It’s called a photograph, I guess you guys have something similar but I-”

Steven’s rambling was interrupted by the warm embrace of a hug.

“It’s been wonderful, Steven,” Rose said as she wrapped her arms around the boy.

“Thanks... Mom.”

Steven, now teary-eyed, pulled away from Rose and held his phone out to take the picture. Rose and Steven quickly nestled into frame, and the photo was captured.

“Rose?” Pearl called out again.

“Coming!” Rose shouted before turning back to Steven one last time, telling him, “Say hi to everyone for me.”

“I will,” Steven said with a nod before Rose summoned her shield and exited into the other room. After putting the Time Thingy in his pocket, Steven stood there for a couple moments in wistful silence. 

He then felt a sudden knot in his stomach, remembering that there was one more thing he had to do. He checked the family picture from his phone. Amethyst was down to her feet. 

He was next.


	9. Hey You!

As the sun set on the Prime Kindergarten, the Quartz guards on duty performed their weekly shift-change, and another set was due to arrive shortly and replace them until the next week, when the two groups would trade places again. It was a method devised by Homeworld to break up the monotony of long term postings, and increase worker productivity. And it was just the gap Steven and Ruby needed in order for their plan to work.

Steven arrived at the Kindergarten ahead of schedule, donning his makeshift cloak to conceal his identity. Overlooking the canyon from the high clifftop, Steven gave his shapeshifting a quick test so he would be tall enough to (vaguely) pass as his mother.

From his perch, Steven could see Eyeball’s Roaming Eye land, a swarm of Peridots rushing around it. A couple of stray Amethysts, one with a cheek-gem and another with a forehead-gem, stood close by. Too close.

“C’mon, c’mon, move…” Steven worried out loud, “Where's that stupid Agate when you need her?”

\---

“And...done!” Ruby said as she finished polishing the walls of the control room.

“You will be done when I say you are done,” Ruby's Agate said, walking up behind her.

“Oh yes, yes of course!” Ruby replied nervously.

The Agate, holding her whip like a riding crop, began to leisurely walk about the room, inspecting the walls for any grime. Ruby started to sweat.

\---

Eyeball stepped out of the Roaming Eye and looked around, adjusting her new yellow visor.

“Fuel it up!” she ordered the Peridots, “I got a meeting with a Sapphire in five minutes and I don't want to be late.”

As the Peridots walked off to get the fuel for the ship, grumbling about having to take orders from a Ruby, Steven intensely watched from above. He couldn’t see his Ruby anywhere, but he figured that she was waiting for the Amethysts as well.

“Please, move…” Steven quietly beckoned.

\---

“You know…” the Agate said as she continued her inspection, “This is rather good work.”

Ruby let out a relieved sigh.

“For a Ruby, that is.”

Ruby went back to looking at the ground.

\---

“8ZB!” Eyeball shouted into the ship, “I want to speak with you out behind the ship!”

A timid Ruby with a shoulder-gem came filing out, nervously giving the Diamond salute as she followed Eyeball around to the other side of the ship.

“W-what do you want to talk about?” she asked.

“I don’t like your attitude,” Eyeball said, reaching to her gem and pulling out a knife, “Let’s fix it, shall we?”

\---

“Hey, we’d better get going if we wanna be on time,” the Forehead-Amethyst said.

“Yeah, let’s go,” the Cheek-Amethyst said back.

As the two Quartzes walked away, Steven felt a wave of relief flow over him, and moved into position. He pulled over the hood of his cloak, summoned his shield, and shape-shifted himself taller.

“Let’s do this…”

\---

“You missed a spot,” the Agate said, finishing her inspection of the control room.

“W-where?” Ruby asked, sweat now flowing down her head.

“Underneath you.”

Ruby looked down and saw that she had left a burnt spot in the floor.

“Oh, that. I’ll clean it up right away-”

“You are dismissed,” the Agate interrupted.

“What?”

“I’ll have a Peridot clean it up. They hate messes. Besides, I never liked them anyway.”

Ruby just stood in confused silence, causing the Agate to shout, “Well did you hear me?! Get out of my sight!”

“Oh right, right!” Ruby exclaimed, running off towards the shaft.

\---

Steven, incognito as Rose Quartz, landed right next to the Roaming Eye and was about to attack...when he was suddenly grabbed by the Cheek-Amethyst from earlier. He dropped his shield in surprise.

“Look who we have here,” she said grimly as she held him by the neck, “I thought I heard something. Turns out, it’s Rose Quartz.”

\---

Meanwhile, Ruby came running up the shaft and down the canyon, pushing past Gems all the way.

“Please don’t be late, please don’t be late, please don’t be late…” she repeated to herself.

She ran up to where the Roaming Eye was parked, and distinctly heard the sounds of fighting behind it. 

“That’s my cue!” she thought as she strolled up to the corner and prepared to leap out. Summoning her gauntlet, Ruby jumped around the corner, poised to attack.

However, she immediately saw that Rose Quartz was nowhere in the vicinity, and that instead, Eyeball was holding 8ZB down and threatening her with her knife. 

“When you’re given an order you follow it!” Eyeball shouted, “This’ll teach you…”

Ruby thought about going back around the corner and waiting for Rose Quartz to arrive, but something kept her standing right where she was. And something even stronger, deep within the core of her being, compelled her to walk towards the fighting Rubies.

Rubies usually fought each other, but in those cases it was simple roughhousing. This was something different. This was something wrong.

She had to do something about it.

\---

At that same time, Steven was dealing with the precarious predicament of being strangled by an particularly deplorable Amethyst, who was now carrying him farther and farther away from where the Roaming Eye was.

“Everyone on Earth knows about Rose Quartz,” Cheek-Amethyst said, “but I never thought you’d be stupid enough to drop in here.”

Sweat began to form on Steven’s brow.

“Don’t you have anything to say? Let me get a better look at you. I wanna remember this...” the Amethyst said, reaching for the hood of Steven’s cloak.

Almost instinctively, Steven summoned his bubble, throwing the Amethyst into a nearby exit hole.

“Sorry,” Steven quickly said before running off back the way he had been taken.

He hoped he wasn’t too late.

\---

Eyeball raised her knife above 8ZB, but paused as she noticed that she was looking right past her.

“9ES?!” she suddenly heard someone call out. It was 6DE, a Ruby with her gem on the back of her hand, who had become curious and stepped out of the ship to check on her commander.

Steven came frantically running up, stopping behind a rock as he saw the events unfold.

“No, no…” Steven said to himself.

Eyeball swiftly turned around at the sound of 6DE’s outburst, finding herself face-to-face with the Ruby she had taken so much satisfaction in belittling over the previous week or so.

“You!” Eyeball exclaimed.

Before she could do anything else, however, Ruby swung her gauntleted fist around and punched Eyeball right in her one and only eye, sending her flying through the Kindergarten, screaming all the way.

\---

Meanwhile, the Agate in charge of the Kindergarten walked up and out of the control room shaft, just as the new round of Quartz guards came marching in.

“Ah, this week’s shift,” the Agate said, standing proudly over the shaft, “I was wondering when you would show up!”

The Quartzes all stood at attention, giving the Diamond Salute and rolling their eyes as their new Agate went on a rant about discipline or something.

“And furthermore,” she continued, “I expect no roughhousing! In this Kindergarten, we respect order! All chaos shall be nipped firmly in the-”

She was cut off, fortunately, by Eyeball, who had been sent flying so far by Ruby’s punch that she slammed right into the Agate’s rear end...knocking both of them down the shaft. The Quartzes couldn’t help but burst into laughter at this.

“4ND!!!!!” the Agate shouted from below.

“Aw no…” Eyeball said, realizing that her brief stint as a commander was over.

\---

Meanwhile, Forehead-Amethyst found Cheek-Amethyst waking up in an exit hole.

“Seriously?! Now is not the time for hole-rest!” she said, grabbing Cheek-Amethyst and pulling her out.

“Wait! Wait!” Cheek-Amethyst pleaded, “I had her! I had Rose Quartz!”

“Sure you did…” Forehead-Amethyst dismissed, walking off into the distance.

“I’m not joking! I had her in my hands!” Cheek-Amethyst insisted, running after her.

“You can tell that to our next Agate when we get cleaning duty. Again.”

“I swear, she had the shield and everything!”

“One of these days, Cheeky, one of these days…”

\---

“That was crazy!” 6DE cried out after seeing Eyeball go soaring past.

Ruby cracked a little smile and reached out to 8ZB.

“Need any help?” she asked, holding out her hand. 8ZB grabbed it and helped herself up.

The awkward silence that followed was interrupted by Peridots arriving with the ship’s fuel. As they filled the Roaming Eye up, Ruby noticed that the rest of the platoon was walking out of the ship, also curious.

“Where’s 4ND?” one of them asked.

Ruby pointed to where she had punched Eyeball towards, causing them all to run in that direction.

“Oh my Stars!” 8ZB cried out as the other Rubies disappeared over the horizon, “The Sapphire arrives in only two minutes! And we have only two guards! Homeworld specifically asked for threeeeee!”

“With the rest of the platoon gone, how are we gonna find a third Ruby on such short notice?!” 6DE beckoned to the sky.

“I can do it!” Ruby replied, stepping forward, “C’mon, let’s get going.”

Steven felt a big smile stretch across his face as the three Rubies boarded the red, teardrop-shaped ship. It looked as though everything was working out perfectly…which, as it always turned out, was too good to be true. 

Steven took out his phone and checked the photo. Amethyst was completely gone now.

This wasn’t over.


	10. Talk About Déjà Vu

The Roaming Eye was beginning take-off procedures. Steven looked back and forth at it and the picture on his phone. The ship began to lift off the ground.

“Oh screw it,” Steven told himself, running to catch the ship.

He leaped on top of the departing Roaming Eye and braced himself for the ultra-high speeds. Steven had realized that since the picture hadn’t reverted back yet, there was still the possibility of Ruby not fusing with Sapphire. He also realized that, given where the fusion had occurred, he couldn’t actually do anything there to make it happen, since it was still Ruby’s choice. But he knew that just waiting behind for things to work out wasn’t an option. Well, it was an option, but it was a rather agonizing one, so off Steven went.

After soaring quickly through the sky for a minute or so, the Roaming Eye slowed down to subsonic speeds and landed at the Galaxy Warp. From what Steven could see, it wasn’t all that different from how it looked in the present, except that in this time period all the warps were intact and usable.

The three Rubies filed out of the ship stood in front of the central warp pad, which led directly to Homeworld. Said warp pad then lit up in a flash of blue light, which dissipated to reveal a small, regal, blue aristocrat Gem: Sapphire.

“Three Ruby guards at your service, your Clarity,” Ruby said, flashing the Diamond Salute.

“Yes indeed,” Sapphire said, hovering down the stairs, “You are to escort me to the Sky Arena at once.”

“Of course, your Clarity,” Ruby said, giving a little bow.

As the three Rubies and Sapphire stepped aboard the Roaming Eye, Steven braced himself again for high speeds. But since the ship was now flying an even farther distance than before, it flew even faster. Steven’s hands gripped the red hull as hard as he could, and luckily he was able to hold on (or else he probably would have found himself floating across the Atlantic, thousands of miles from shore).

The ship began to slow down as it approached yet another familiar Gem landmark, the Sky Arena. A small hangar opened up just underneath the main floor of the arena, and the Roaming Eye made its way towards it to land. As it was coming in for landing, Steven quickly noticed that the Roaming Eye was so tall that there was barely any clearance between the roof of the hangar and the roof that he was hiding on. Looking over the edge, Steven came to the startling realization that the Sky Arena was VERY high up.

“Oh come on!” Steven said as he looked at the nerve-racking height below him and the rapidly approaching upper lip of the hangar doors ahead of him.

Taking a risk, Steven jumped off the roof of the Roaming Eye at just the right moment and landed right at the edge of the hangar, scrambling inside as the doors shut.

“Phew…” Steven sighed with relief.

“Did you hear something?” he heard a guard say from the other end of the room.

“No, I didn’t hear anything,” he heard another say.

“Well I’m gonna check it out.”

“You do that…”

Steven looked around frantically for places to hide, but in the hangar itself there shockingly weren’t any. He could see the three Rubies and Sapphire ascend up a set of ornate stairs, but that was right where the other guard was, and the first one was walking right towards him. Out of the corner of his eye, Steven saw another exit right across from the stairs, a set of plain double doors.

Just as the guard came walking around the Roaming Eye, Steven ran straight for the doors and ducked inside. Behind the doors was what appeared to be a dimly-lit service corridor, allowing lower class Gems to perform their duties out of sight from the elites.

“This was a terrible idea,” Steven told himself as he leaned against the wall of the corridor.

His self-criticizing was interrupted however, by a Pearl entering the corridor from another entrance ahead of him. She was light blue, with hair covering most of her face. Steven recognized her as the Pearl belonging to Blue Diamond. Steven quickly tightened the hood over his head and began walking down the hallway, discovering that with his cloak, he could easily pass for a small, elite Gem of some kind.

Blue Pearl made a right into another corridor, and Steven followed. He figured that Blue Diamond’s Pearl would most likely be walking back to her Diamond, and was therefore heading in the same direction that Sapphire and the Rubies would be taking above.

In fact, the service corridor just happened to be right underneath where Sapphire and the Rubies were walking, so Steven was able to hear what they were saying.

“Hey!” one of the Rubies said, “Can't wait for those rebels to get here!”

“Haha, yeah! When I see those rebels, I'm gonna punch them right in their faces!”

“What are you saying? I'm gonna punch them all over their bodies, and then it'll be over.”

“What if… I just punch you!”

Steven heard a brief yelp from one of the Rubies, but as far as he could tell they just kept on walking. To him, it was almost like having a story repeated back to him, except that this time, he was only a few feet of rock below the action.

“Oh, come on. We'll punch 'em together when we fuse. That's why they sent, uh, three of us?” he heard his own Ruby say.

“Three this!”

There was a stumbling noise, a bump, and then an audible gasp by the surrounding elites. Spotting an access ladder on the side of the corridor, Steven decided to use this distraction as an opportunity to see for himself what was going on. If he didn’t know any better, he could have swore that he saw Blue Pearl give him a suspicious glance as he climbed upwards, but even if she did, she didn’t let it interfere with her work, and continued down the corridor to set of plain stairs that led up to Blue Diamond’s Palanquin.

Emerging from down below, Steven luckily found himself concealed by a large statue of some sort, and, still hidden by his cloak, didn’t arouse much suspicion when he peeked out from behind it. From a distance, he could see Sapphire getting up off the floor from Ruby backing into her.

“Oh, I, um,” Ruby stammered, “I'm so sorry… I, let me, uh…”

“I'm fine,” Sapphire said.

“What?”

“It’s okay. It was bound to happen.”

The group then continued on towards Blue Diamond’s Palanquin, Steven stealthily following as he ducked behind pillars and larger Gems.

“Now please wait here,” Sapphire instructed the Rubies once they had arrived at their destination, “I must attend to my duties.”

“Right.”

“Mmm.”

“Yes.”

As Sapphire walked past the two Quartz guards and into Blue Diamond’s inner sanctum (Blue Pearl standing silently next to it, Steven noticed), Steven took out his phone and checked the picture. He was still all alone, but had yet to disappear. Inside the Palanquin, Sapphire spoke.

“I foresee the rebels attacking the Sky Arena,” she said, “Before they are cornered, they will destroy the physical forms of seven gems, including two of my Ruby guards, and myself. Immediately after my form is destroyed, the rebels will be captured. The rebellion ends here.”

“For once I hope you’re wrong…” Steven quietly said to himself.

“Thank you Sapphire,” Blue Diamond said, “That's all I needed to know.”

“I look forward to speaking with you again once I reform back on Homeworld,” Sapphire said before giving a curtsy and departing back to where her Ruby guards were.

He suddenly heard a vaguely English-sounding voice ask him, “Who are you?”

Steven could feel every muscle in his body tense up.

“Oh Aquamarine,” another voice, one of an Agate, said, “she’s obviously a Sapphire. Forgive us, your Clarity, for the confusion.”

“But there’s already a Sapphire over there! Why would our Diamond speak with only one Sapphire when there are two available?”

“Oh you’re just being paranoid again.”

Steven was sweating with nervousness underneath his cloak.

Back over in the main stretch of the arena, Sapphire began conversing with Ruby.

“What a beautiful place to build a colony,” she said, “I wish I could have seen more of this planet.”

“Uh... there's still time,” Ruby said.

“That is a nice thought,” Sapphire said in return, “but... no.”

Steven began to slowly inch away from the two blue gems, but was interrupted once again.

“Your Clarity,” the Era-1 Aquamarine requested, “May I look upon your radiance? With talk of rebellion these days it can't help to be certain.”

“Uhh…” Steven said, desperately attempting to make himself sound like a Sapphire but failing.

Suddenly, as if an answer to his pleas, a familiar voice rang out over the arena.

“Blue Diamond, leave this planet!” Rose Quartz called out, “This colony will not be completed!”

“It's the rebels!” one of the Rubies shouted.

All the Gems turned their attention to the voice of Rose Quartz, giving Steven the distraction he needed to run back the way he came.

“Who are you?! Show yourselves!” a Gem cried out.

Steven smiled as he looked up at the sky and saw Pearl and his mother descend from the clouds, shouting, “We are the Crystal Gems!”

Just as Blue Diamond’s Palanquin retreated, Steven felt himself stumble and trip right onto a pillar. A sharp pain ran through his spine. He looked onward as Pearl defeated four larger Gems with her swords, and the three Rubies fused together into one, large Ruby.

Now feeling pain running all throughout his body, Steven scrambled to check the photograph. In it, he was starting to disappear.

Back in the fight, Rose Quartz defused the Ruby Fusion with her bare hands, and Pearl destroyed the forms of two of the three fusion components, leaving only Ruby-9ES, Steven’s Ruby, intact.

Steven lifted up his hand and saw it fade away before his very eyes, just before keeling over to his side in pain.

“Thank you, Ruby,” Sapphire said as Pearl stood at the ready, about to strike her form, “You did your best.”

Ruby sat motionless on the floor for several short, yet agonizing, moments, realizing what Sapphire meant, but also hesitating in thought about what to do. In those same moments, Steven looked back down at his quickly disappearing photograph, and back at Ruby.

“C’mon Ruby…” Steven quietly said in anguish.

It was at that moment Ruby made her decision.

“NOOOOOO!!!” Ruby shouted, rushing towards Sapphire with all her might.

Ruby jumped at Sapphire just as Pearl swung her sword, causing the two to spiral in each other’s arms, both of their Gems glowing. And in a flash of bright light, Ruby and Sapphire’s physical and mental beings merged together, fusing, for the very first time, into Garnet.

Steven suddenly felt as if all the energy in the universe surged right into him, as he stood upright and looked onward at the cotton-candy-colored fusion standing before the arena. A big fat smile swept across his face, and he picked up his phone and stared at the picture of his family, joyfully seeing himself, Amethyst, Pearl, and Garnet fade back into existence.

The Pearl of the past shook herself out of her astonishment and was about to attack, when Rose grabbed her by the arm.

“Wait!” Rose interrupted, “Let’s go.”

“Uh...bye!” Pearl said before she and Rose jumped off into the sky.

Steven, giddy with excitement, made a break for the entrance to the hangar, taking advantage of every Gem in the arena staring right at the newly-formed Garnet.

“Is this…?” Garnet began to ask herself before unfusing on the spot.

As Steven cut through the crowd, he heard voices holler things like, “Unbelievable!” “Disgusting!” and “This is unheard of!” Blue Diamond’s voice then rang out, her Palanquin hovering above them all.

“The rebels have fled. Sapphire, this was not the scenario you described!”

Steven, still cloaked, bumped into a Gem as he ran past.

“Oh,” the Gem said, her voice extremely familiar, “My apologies.”

Steven looked up and saw that the Gem he had bumped into was a Lapis Lazuli. Not just any Lapis Lazuli, but his Lapis Lazuli: The Lapis Lazuli that would get stuck in a mirror for 5,000 years, the Lapis Lazuli who would steal the Earth’s oceans, the Lapis Lazuli who would be trapped in a fusion with Jasper...

“No prob,” Steven muttered before running off.

Lapis just shrugged and turned back towards the center of attention.

Steven could hear Sapphire stammer, “This is... not what I saw! I don't know what happened, I…”

“No! It was me!” Ruby screamed.

“Clearly,” Blue Diamond said, coldly.

Steven suddenly stopped at the same stairway Sapphire and the Rubies had walked up, as the two guards from earlier were standing in it, looking around.

“What’s going on over there?” one of the guards asked.

“I dunno,” the other replied, “Must be something important.”

Quickly losing his patience, Steven summoned his shield and ricocheted it off the two guards’ heads, catching it as the two fell back down the stairs.

“Sorry, but I’m running late,” Steven quickly blurted out as he ran past the two unconscious bodies.

“How dare you fuse with a member of my court!” Blue Diamond bellowed.

Steven scurried into the Roaming Eye and climbed into the pilot’s seat.

“You’ve seen Pearl fly before,” Steven told himself as he examined the controls, “How hard can it be?”

Up above, Ruby pleaded with Blue Diamond, “Forgive me, I…”

Just as Steven got the ship off the ground, the two guards woke up and pointed in his direction, (correctly) assuming that their assailant had ran onboard.

“You will be broken for this!” Blue Diamond shouted, so loud that the entire arena could hear it.

Steven slammed his hand onto the controls, throwing the Roaming Eye into reverse, thereby crashing through the hangar bay doors.

“That works for me!” Steven said, haphazardly turning the ship around and pushing the controls forward.

As the ship flew off into the storm clouds, Steven could faintly hear the sound of Ruby screaming as Sapphire grabbed her and ran off towards the wilderness below.

It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship.


	11. Back to the Future

“Okay, okay,” Steven said as he gripped the control panel of the stolen Roaming Eye, “I got this. I got this. Ruby and Sapphire fused, history’s back on track, the Gems and humanity are saved… Now all I have to do is get back to the Kindergarten and activate the Time Thingy! Now if only I knew where I was going…”

Suddenly, the ship's communications panel flickered to life as a message came through.

“Attention aircraft: You are flying over Diamond territory without an identification beacon. Please identify yourself and your destination or you will be shot down. You have one minute.”

Steven’s eyes widened in horror as the main console began to flash red, and, to even greater horror, saw two giant spaceships dwarfing him on either side.

“Oh jeez, uh…” Steven stammered as he scanned the controls for the “transmit” button. After a solid minute went by, he just took a guess.

The button Steven pressed made a green light go off on the control panel, so he put on his best Ruby impression and began speaking.

“Oh hiya,” Steven began, “This is Ruby and in our...lowly stupidity me and my fellow Rubies must have forgotten to switch on the beacon! Silly us. Let me just...uh...turn it on.”

“Understood,” the voice on the other end said.

Steven stared at the control panel for a few seconds, before realizing that he had no idea how to do that.

“Oh wouldn't you know it!” Steven blurted out in his Ruby voice, “It's broken! That's why it's not on, ha-ha…”

“State your purpose,” the voice said, growing more and more frustrated.

“Oh! Uh… We’re on our way to...the Prime Kindergarten! Yeah, yeah, and our navigational system is malfunctioning too, so can you…”

“We will escort you to your destination, Roaming Eye,” another, similar voice said, “Please follow the lead dropship.”

Steven sighed with relief.

“Will do!” he said, flicking off the comm and steering the Roaming Eye behind the dropship.

Steven got a good look at the stars as he crossed the ocean. In those brief minutes, he could only imagine what it was like out beyond those stars. Well, he could a little; After all, he’d been to a space station over 70 lightyears away, and he'd heard enough about Homeworld from Peridot to get an idea of what it was like, but-

His train of thought was interrupted by a message over the comm.

“This is Acting Commander Ruby: Facet-3G5C, Cut-6DE broadcasting on all frequencies. Our ship has been taken, probably by hostile rebel forces! It's a class, uh, one? Yeah, a class one Roaming Eye! It was last spotted heading southwest. They may have kidnapped a Sapphire!”

That last line seemed to get the dropship’s attention. As they powered up weapons, Steven pressed the transmission button and cleared his throat.

“Uh...funny story,” Steven began, “That Ruby is the biggest jokester, so you should probably ignore her and just continue escorting me… Please?”

There were a few moments of silence, until Steven heard the same voice as before speak.

“What is your identification code, Ruby?” she asked.

“Um, well,” Steven stammered, “my identification code...is…”

Then Steven saw, out of the corner of his eye, something familiar approaching below them. It was the Prime Kindergarten.

“...none of your beeswax!” Steven quipped before shutting off the comm and diving the ship towards the greyish canyon below. The dropship followed in pursuit. It fired some sort of plasma weapon, hitting the Roaming Eye square in the back. Sparks flew across the cabin, and the lights flickered off.

“I hope this handles like a Dondai!” Steven said as his ship descended rapidly through the clouds.

Steven gripped the controls and pulled the ship out of the dive, flying straight into the canyon at high speeds. Steven tried to fly above the Kindergarten altogether, but the dropship, unable to fit into the canyon, followed him overhead, blocking any significant ascent. Luckily, they didn't fire on him for fear of damaging the Kindergarten. 

“Gotta slow down, gotta slow down…” Steven said as he scrambled to find the appropriate controls, knowing that the ship was quickly approaching its destination.

Before he could finish searching, however, the entrance to the control room appeared on the horizon. Steven looked up at the massive dropship above him and back down at the flight controls and the square in the earth directly ahead. He gripped the controls in anticipation. At this point, whoever was in charge on the dropship was growing impatient and began charging up weapons.

Just as the Roaming Eye neared the entrance, they fired. Steven pushed as hard as he could on the controls, flying the ship straight down the shaft, but not before the projectile fired from the dropship slammed into the Roaming Eye’s hull, disrupting all systems beyond repair. Steven summoned his bubble as the ship spiraled out of control into the underground.

\---

The crash was severe, but thanks to Steven's bubble, he survived unscathed. Pushing aside red debris, he stumbled towards the main computer. As he reached for the Time Thingy in his pocket, he noticed a black stain on the floor. Steven couldn't help but let out a chuckle once he realized who had probably done that.

His musings were interrupted, however, by the sounds of over a dozen Quartz soldiers descending down the shaft. Steven quickly made a break for the computer console as their voices drew closer.

He set the Time Thingy on the hand panel. The power crystal in front of it lit up bright green, as well as the coils leading to the crystal. Following that, the hand panel and the Time Thingy itself lit up, signifying the transfer of energy.

Steven took a deep breath, and grabbed hold of the small hourglass. As the Quartz soldiers touched down in the other end of the room, he only thought of one thing: Home.

\---

Steven found himself on the beach, lying face up towards the water. It was midday.

“Please don't tell me…” he started to say before turning around.

His gaze was met with the familiar look of the Beach City boardwalk: 21st century civilization. Steven ran across the sand to the front window of Beach Citywalk Fries, where Peedee was sitting.

“Peedee!” Steven shouted, “What's today's date?!”

“June 11th.”

“The year!”

“2015. Why?”

“I did it! Ha ha! I made it!

“This is clearly something I won't understand, but are you gonna order something or not?”

Steven's stomach let out a huge rumble.

“All the fry bits you got.”

“Coming up.”

Steven looked at the time. It was an hour to noon. He had arrived before his past self had even left for the Sea Temple.

He shrugged. Looks like he would just have some time to kill, he figured.

\---

About an hour later, in the Sea Temple, the Steven of the past had just disappeared in a flash of light.

“Steven! What happened to Steven?!” Lapis demanded to know as the Crystal Gems fought off the Sea Monsters pouring through the windows.

“We need to get out of here!” Garnet shouted, “Warp pad! All of you!”

The five Gems all ran to the warp pad and were subsequently whisked away by the blue light.

“Based on the device’s purpose,” Peridot began, “We can surmise that Steven was sent somewhere in time. Pearl, it activated in your hands, what were you thinking of?”

“Fighting off the monsters!”

“Ah, but those were instinctive thoughts. The orb only works, or rather worked, using the user’s most recent thought of a certain place and time. So, what was yours?”

“Well, I, uh, had overheard Garnet’s story...to Steven…earlier... Garnet, when did that story take place?!”

Garnet stood still for a few seconds, thinking.

“Garnet?”

As they materialized back at the Temple, Garnet answered, a knowing smile creeping across her face.

“Five thousand, seven hundred, and fifty years ago. Roughly.”

They were greeted by the sound of Steven's voice in the main room ahead of them.

“I’m back!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sit tight; There's one more chapter left!
> 
> Also, if you haven't noticed, all the chapter titles so far have been Back to the Future quotes :)


	12. Something Very Familiar (Epilogue)

All the Quartz guards found at the bottom of that shaft were a wrecked Roaming Eye and a drained power crystal. There was no sign of the pilot or any passengers, and no one had any idea of what had happened to them.

The investigation into the theft of the Roaming Eye was cut short due to the Rebellion, leaving the case largely unsolved. Rumors began to spread about the incident, eventually reaching Rose Quartz herself.

Oddly enough, aside from cracking a little smile upon hearing the story, she didn't get involved in much of the theorizing that later rebels became somewhat obsessed with.

While everyone else was wondering about the Case of the Stolen Roaming Eye, Garnet was wondering about the fate of the human boy who worked tirelessly to help Ruby, and was ultimately responsible for her very existence. She didn't know where the boy lived, what is life was like, or who the heck the “Space Goddess of Space” was, but she couldn't help but want to find him and thank him. She tried to look to the future, but it was too foggy to make out.

As the years passed and the Rebellion grew, Garnet became so preoccupied that she mostly forgot about the small boy with the red star shirt.

Centuries went by, giving way to millennia. Homeworld evacuated and unleashed Corruption, leaving only Pearl, Rose, and Garnet.

Some time into their exile, they found a small, runty Amethyst who had emerged late in the Prime Kindergarten, and took her in as one of their own.

Civilizations rose and fell. Empires crumbled. The human population grew quickly. Rose even courted some of them.

Then, in what the humans called the late 20th century, Rose met a young musician named Greg. Greg Universe to be more exact.

Four years later, Rose gave up her physical form to bring life to a child: A boy named Steven Universe.

Garnet couldn't shake the feeling that the name sounded familiar, but that curiosity was overridden by her suddenly becoming the de facto leader of the Crystal Gems.

Fourteen years went by since then. Steven learned to summon his mother’s shield, help defend the Earth from Homeworld, and found out all sorts of things about the Gems he had grown to love over the years, just as they did the same to him.

“What were Ruby and Sapphire’s lives like before they met?” Steven asked Garnet one day, his eyes wide.

Garnet leaned back on the couch and thought for a moment.

“Very boring,” she finally said.

“Aw, come on! There’s gotta be more to it than that.”

“Alright… Sapphire spent most of her time on Homeworld in the Thinking Spires, analyzing the future, discussing it with the other Sapphires…being invited to the endless gala events Blue Diamond kept throwing.”

“Was that the boring part?”

“...Yes.”

“And how about Ruby? Her life must have been exciting.”

“I wouldn’t say that…”

“What do you mean?”

“Ruby could never truly fit in with other Rubies. The ones on Earth weren’t very nice.”

This, as Steven would find out with 6DE and 8ZB, wasn't necessarily true, but Ruby’s memories of other Rubies wasn’t very clear after being fused with Sapphire for 5,750 years.

“Aw, that’s terrible…”

“Ruby had only been stationed on Earth for a week or so before she guarded Sapphire on her visit.”

Garnet began to chuckle a little.

“What?” Steven asked.

“Now that’s a good story…”

“Tell me!”

Garnet would tell Steven the story of how Ruby had screwed up, and how a young human came to her and helped restore her confidence. The story of how she defended a fellow Ruby from a bullying commander, which allowed her to take her old job back. She never saw the boy again, and due to the sands of time, she had pretty much forgotten what the boy had looked like, or even his name.

As the five Gems stood in the blue light following Steven's disappearance, the pieces began to come together. She knew exactly where Steven went and exactly what he did when he got there. Garnet didn't know how to thank him.

But she knew someone who did.

\---

After the Gems’ excitement and worry died down and everyone had been given a (cursory) explanation of what happened, Steven flopped down on the couch.

“Ah, there's no time like the present,” he said, exhausted, “It's good to be back.”

With his eyes closed, he heard the Temple Door open, followed by small, quick footsteps.

“Steven!” Ruby shouted with joy.

“Ruby? What happened? Did you and Sapphire get in an argument again?”

“No, no, no, no, no! Nothing like that! It's just...I wanted to say thank you.”

“For what?”

“Steven, did you really think me and Sapphire didn't figure it out? That was you, all those millennia ago! You pushed me out of the way of those cannons! You told me I could be a hero! You even came up with that ridiculous plan to get my job back that didn't really work out in the end, but do you know what did happen in the end?”

Steven didn't answer.

“Steven, you saved me.”

“I was just fixing a mistake,” Steven said, “If I didn't push you out of the way, you wouldn't have lost your job in the first place.”

“Well, in that instance, you gave Garnet a much better story to tell.”

Steven started laughing.

“C’mere you!” Ruby said, hopping on the couch and giving Steven a hug, which quickly turned into a tickling contest.

“Ruby!” Steven said between giggles, “You already thanked me a few hours ago!”

“It's been over 5,000 years on my end, Steven!” Ruby cackled as the Temple Door opened.

“I see you two have… remet,” Sapphire said.

“Hey Sapphire!” Steven called out.

“Well thanks again,” Ruby said to Steven as she stepped off the couch.

“You know,” Steven said teasingly, “You two were pretty adorable when you first fused.”

“You saying we aren’t adorable now?” Ruby asked, equally teasingly.

“No, but I do like cotton candy...”

Sapphire started giggling, while Ruby just stood there, confused.

“I don’t get it,” Ruby said.

“You’ll understand it better once we’re fused again,” Sapphire said with a smile.

Ruby and Sapphire then performed a little twirl and, in a flash, fused into Garnet.

“Now she gets it,” Garnet said with the same smile Sapphire had.

“So what do I do with this?” Steven said, taking the twice-used Time Thingy out of his pocket.

“Give it to me,” Garnet said.

She promptly threw the device onto the floor and stomped it into dust.

Since the destruction of this Time Thingy did not erase any future timelines (that Garnet knew of), this Steven did NOT disintegrate horribly like his various temporal duplicates did nearly two years earlier.

“Sapphire doesn’t like it when the future changes artificially,” Garnet explained, “and Ruby can't understand paradoxes in the slightest. That makes for a Garnet who really, really does not like time travel. If I were human, it'd give me a splitting headache.”

Garnet chuckled.

“Good night Steven,” Garnet said as she walked back into the Temple.

“Good night Garnet,” Steven said, walking up to his room.

Once the door had shut, Steven paused to look up at the painting of his mother. What had previously inspired awe or curiosity or even inadequacy now sparked a newfound appreciation within Steven.

He looked down at his gem, formerly his mother’s. Rose Quartz was no longer some mythical entity from the past. He had met her. He had gotten to know her. The Rose Quartz he met wasn’t some holographic recreation in a cloud-filled room, she was the real thing. And she was a person.

Of course, he still had tons of unanswered questions lingering deep within his psyche, but for now, as he lied down in his own bed for the first time in what felt like a week, he was at peace knowing that above all else his mother was one thing deep down: 

She was Human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading!
> 
> As a bonus, here's the Reddit post that inspired this fic: https://www.reddit.com/r/stevenuniverse/comments/6511zr/if_ruby_hadnt_have_pushed_sapphire_out_of_the_way/


End file.
